


Rescue

by Lepidopteran (lepi)



Series: Earn Your Way Back [1]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lepi/pseuds/Lepidopteran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Predacons Rising, Smokescreen frees someone who shouldn't have been on the Nemesis to begin with and ends up in Ratchet's care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

"Ow! C'mon, Doc, can't you ease up a little on the welder?" Smokescreen complained. "It's not like anyone bothered to mention that we had Soundwave in another plane of existence on the ship! This is so totally not my fault."

Ratchet did not in fact ease up on the welder, which Smokescreen thought was probably a violation of medical ethics or something. You had to be nice to your patients, right? "My name is not Doc," he said. _"You_ have been spending entirely too much time with Wheeljack. Hold _still._ " He didn't look Smokescreen in the eye or anything.

Smokescreen tried not to move, really he did, but he couldn't help it. He'd never liked repairs. At least upgrades had the promise of really awesome weapons afterwards. "Ratchet, right. Can't you—"

Ratchet slammed his shoulder against the medical slab. "Hold _still_ , I said. Or do you need to be put into stasis for this?"

Even more ow. Smokescreen opened his mouth, then decided that he wasn't going to say anything. He could forgive Ratchet for this. Ratchet was grieving, and Smokescreen didn't want it to look like he couldn't handle a simple weld. He just had to let Ratchet know that this really hurt, in case any future patients weren't as tough as him.

"And as for the rest of your nonsense," Ratchet said, "it seems the human children forgot to mention that to _any_ of us. If they had, it might have occurred to someone that running around with a phase shifter might not be the best idea."

It kind of sounded like Ratchet thought that wasn't the best idea anyway. And Smokescreen… well, he couldn't argue this one. He'd messed up. He didn't really _need_ to phase through walls now that the Nemesis was under Autobot control. It had just been, well, fun.

Fun up until something had grabbed his arm in the middle of an empty hallway, anyway.

Still, he didn't think it was reasonable for everyone to assume that he'd just been goofing off. "Look, it's not like the phase shifter can _only_ be used in combat, right? It can be used for lots of other things. Like sneaking around, and, uh…"

"Rescuing Decepticons from spacebridge-induced dimensional shifts?" Ratchet muttered something that Smokescreen couldn't hear over the sound of the welder. "You do realize that it's likely the phase shifter was originally intended for that purpose? Bridge malfunctions are nothing new, and it makes more sense that something like this would be constructed as a rescue device rather than as some kind of weapon."

"No kidding?" Personally, Smokescreen couldn't really see it. How could you make something so cool that worked so well for fighting if it had just been meant for some boring rescue work? But Ratchet sounded almost excited, and, again: grieving. Smokescreen couldn't really blame him for latching on to some ridiculous theory. The loss of Optimus had hit them all hard, but Ratchet most of all. He hadn't gone back to Earth to mope yet, but that probably had more to do with the fact that Ultra Magnus still needed someone to look after him, and none of them really trusted Knock Out all the way yet. Well… Smokescreen didn't, anyway. He and Knock Out had that whole rivalry thing going on. Two bots, only one phase shifter… that sort of thing never ended well. At least Knock Out had pulled him out of the wall eventually.

"Hmph." Ratchet set down the welder and scanned Smokescreen again. "There. You're as good as new."

Smokescreen rotated his arm experimentally and grinned. "Thanks, Ratchet." Ratchet waved him off and started to leave, but Smokescreen slipped off the slab and followed him with a twitch of his doorwings. "Hey, so, I'm curious… If this really is rescue technology, how many people are still trapped in there? Any chance of running into more Decepticons? Not that I'd mind, of course! I handled Soundwave just fine." Well, to be fair, Soundwave had nearly wrenched his arm off and then escaped via spacebridge, with the coordinates wiped out by the time Smokescreen had made it to a console, but he hadn't killed anyone. "But, you know, since there might be civilians landing eventually—"

Ratchet turned and glared at him. "We found the phase shifter on Earth," he said. "Unless there were additional copies— and if there were I _sincerely_ doubt that any of them survived— it's highly unlikely that anyone in this so-called shadowzone would have survived that long. Soundwave was the only Cybertronian unaccounted for, and the children have admitted to phasing him out deliberately. Any more questions?"

"Whoa, you're really not in the mood to talk." Smokescreen hesitated, then reached out and touched Ratchet's shoulder armor. Ratchet flinched, and Smokescreen pulled his hand back. He thought about blurting out, then, what had happened with Optimus when he lay dying on Earth. Just, you know… They'd all seen Optimus' spark, and Smokescreen had pretty concrete proof that Optimus could come back from death just as Optimus Prime-ly as ever. But Ratchet was sad enough that he probably wouldn't believe it, and then there was the whole bit with the Matrix being gone now. "Okay, I'll just… go. Maybe I'll ask Bee if he's gotten those coordinates recovered."

"You do that," Ratchet said in a tone of flat disinterest.

Yeah, okay, definitely not bringing up the whole Optimus thing. But someday, when Ratchet was ready, Smokescreen would be there with all the hope he needed.


End file.
